“Big business, it don't like you, it don't like the things you do. You got no money, so you got no power.”   In this selection of short-form films, protagonists assert their power and try to rewrite the narrative against powerful forces they face.  In Maia Wikler’s documentary WILD EAST (Canada/US 2026, 36 min), environmental activist Gabi Paun risks his life to expose illegal logging in Romania’s ancient forests, taking on timber mafias and IKEA while revealing the hidden cost of the world’s appetite for cheap furniture. In the fictional FLESH IMPACT (US 2026, 17 min), director Maggie Gyllenhaal assembles a notable cast (Ellen Burstyn, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard) to tell a revisionist history of Marilyn Monroe, who faces down studio pressure to assert her voice and influence, in a speculation on a career that might have been.  Then in FREE JOAN LITTLE (US 2025, 38 min), award-winning filmmaker Yoruba Richen excavates a groundbreaking true-life 1975 case that galvanized Black Power activists, feminists, and prison reformers around one young Black woman’s historic fight for justice and the right to defend herself against sexual violence.  Be sure not to miss this memorable, eclectic trio of legends and their stories. —Michelle Svenson